


The Wolf's Pursuit

by Smediterranea



Series: The Wolf's Vengeance [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, One Shot, Siblings, Slow Burn, Smut, Sorry Not Sorry, Why can't I write anything short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 05:40:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19311763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smediterranea/pseuds/Smediterranea
Summary: The best skill Arya has developed being a bartender is how to read people. The old man drinking alone at the bar is nervous about something, slowly tearing apart the coaster between his fingers. The couple in the booth by the window are in the middle of a fight; she wouldn’t be surprised it it was a breakup. And the extremely good-looking man at the end of the bar is glaring at his beer, with a menacing posture that clearly says ‘don’t fuck with me.’Which is too bad, really, because Arya really would like to fuck him.Arya's perspective of "The Wolf's Disguise"





	The Wolf's Pursuit

**Author's Note:**

> This is Arya's perspective of the events in "The Wolf's Disguise." While it might not be 100% necessary to read that one first, it would (hopefully) add to your enjoyment of this one.
> 
> As in the previous edition, Joffrey Baratheon is now Joffrey Lannister for Modern Day Reasons.
> 
> Enjoy!

The drive from King’s Landing to Eastwatch is brutal, but Arya has a system, and it’s really the only reason she even still has a car at this point. Each time she makes the drive, she says a little prayer that her crappy old Honda will make it, but it’s never failed her yet.

Even though she’s been driving for seven hours, she makes a pit stop just shy of her final destination to pick up a large pizza and a case of cheap beer. She doesn’t want to show up empty handed.

Car parked, she throws on her backpack and fumbles with her keys. She rings the doorbell before unlocking the door.

“Jon, it’s me!” she calls out to the small, dark house. Ghost, Jon’s enormous white dog, pads quietly across the hardwood floors to greet Arya.

“Just a sec!” comes the muffled voice of her cousin. Arya tosses her backpack on the couch where she’ll sleep and sets about getting glasses for their beers. 

The door to the small bathroom opens, steam wafting out. Jon has a towel slung across his hips and looks a little frazzled, but happy to see her.

“Sorry I’m not dressed,” he says. “Didn’t think you’d be here for another half hour.”

“Traffic cleared up,” she shrugs, pointedly avoiding looking anywhere but Jon’s face. Seeing the scars on his chest always makes her feel queasy.

Jon doesn’t seem to notice her discomfort, distracted by the smell of pizza. He gives her a smile.

“Great. I’m starving. Let me just get changed real fast.”

He ducks into his room, closing the door behind him. Arya lets out a small sigh.

It’s been two years since the accident, but it still throws her for a loop to think about just how close Jon had been to death. 

Accident isn’t really the correct word to describe what had happened, though. What had happened to Jon had been very much intentional. The only accident had been that he had lived through it.

When Arya was little, she had wanted to be just like her cousin Jon. When he had joined the police academy, Arya had declared her intent to do the same, even though she was barely out of middle school. Her parents had tried to steer her away, to do something more suitable for well-to-do people, but Arya was not to be deterred. It was only when Jon had laughingly reminded her that Arya hated all types of authority, and would thus be a terrible candidate for joining the ranks of a hierarchically-driven police force, that she had actually reconsidered her career path. Still, she was very proud of her cousin, and she still wanted to do her part in getting justice for those who deserved it. She was even going to law school now. She wasn’t just going to help people within the system, she wanted to change the system itself.

Two years ago, Jon had been working a high-profile, yet secretive, case. Arya had pleaded and prodded him for details for months without any luck. The only detail she had managed to get out of him was that it was related to racketeering, and she was not to worry about it.

Then, while Jon had been out on a motorcycle ride with his girlfriend Ygritte, he had been shot twice by masked men in a passing car. Jon had crashed, left to bleed out by the side of the road. The paramedics arrived in time to stabilize Jon, but it was too late for Ygritte — a bullet had struck her in the heart. She had died instantly.

The doctors had praised Jon’s survival as a miracle, but it had been a living nightmare for Arya and her family. Jon was practically a son to her parents, having lost his own parents as a child, and was more like her brother than her cousin. Every time the doctors talked about how “lucky” Jon was Arya had wanted to scream. Jon was in a medically induced coma, he’d had his spleen removed, the crash had crushed his femur, there were whispers of permanent disability and brain damage — how was this lucky? But she had swallowed her tongue when she thought of Ygritte — bold and beautiful and dead — and instead she quietly thanked Jon’s doctors and nurses whenever they came around.

Arya had been just about to finish her first year in law school when Jon had been attacked. She had fully intended to drop out and move to Eastwatch to care for Jon, but her father had stopped her.

“It’s not what Jon would want,” Ned had quietly advised her.

“You don’t know that,” she shot back.

“Yes, I do,” said Ned calmly. “We’ll all take care of Jon, Arya. Even you. But what Jon needs when he wakes up is to know that justice will be served. You are part of that, Arya.”

Arya had never been more grateful to her father. He had always understood her, often in ways that she had yet to understand herself. But he probably didn’t realize the idea he had inadvertently given her.

Getting the files had been much easier than Arya had expected. She had convinced her siblings to come with her to the police station to enact her plan. No one had wanted to go at first, but Arya’s eyes had welled with tears and her siblings, so unaccustomed to the idea that Arya might _ever_ cry, piled in the car with her. Once at the station, things went exactly as Arya had planned. Seeing Jon’s photo of Ygritte on his desk had made Sansa cry, Rickon had immediately taken an interest to the firearms present, Bran had been drawn to the gruesome photos of murder timelines, and Robb was making the rounds, shaking hands with everyone Jon had ever worked with. The officers tried to console Sansa, keep Rickon from touching weapons, prevent Bran from looking at dismembered corpses, or suck up to Robb, the newly appointed Winterfell mayor. Arya had used the distraction to quietly slip Jon’s files into her backpack. The next day, she had returned to the station and replaced the files with no one the wiser.

She had plunged headfirst into the corrupt world of the Lannisters. Jon’s files had pages and pages of suspected criminal activities by members of Lannister Inc., all under the machinations of CEO Tywin Lannister, but little concrete evidence against him existed. Smaller players had been taken down — distant cousins and hired mercenaries — but it was clear that as long as Tywin remained, the Lannister machine would continue to exploit the people of Westeros. It made Arya’s blood boil.

She had spent the summer in Eastwatch overseeing Jon’s care. She had reluctantly agreed to return to her classes in the fall, but she would be damned if she was going to spend her summer in some stuff law office while her cousin languished from his injuries all alone. The time with Jon gave her plenty of time to dive into the case — Jon spent a good portion of his day sleeping — and form a plan.

The files had been focused on new Lannister activities in Eastwatch, but there had been mention of many more criminal dealings in King’s Landing, where Arya went to school. She made a short list of places and people of interest and upon her return to the city, set about her investigation.

Harrenhal Pub had been laughably easy to infiltrate. Arya had shown up, pestered the bartender about a job, and had been hired without so much as a background check. She had given them a false name — Ari Poole — and in return they paid her rather more than the minimum wage. Arya suspected the owners weren’t actually too sure on what normal things actually cost — she was overpaid, but the beer and food was priced too cheap. There was, inexplicably, a cover to get into the dingy club past ten PM. It kept the customers to a safe set: older drunks with bad memories, happy hour coworkers intent on quickly downing their drinks, and only a few customers late into the evening, when the real business was taking place in the back.

Arya had helped Jon study for his detective exam, and she had picked up a few of his tricks. It was obvious something was afoot at the Harrenhal Pub. There were five security cameras positioned outside, and several more in the back of the kitchen, but none anywhere else, including above the bar’s cash register. There was an old dusty jukebox that seemed to be out of order, but it was warm to the touch and sometimes emitted a faint humming. Arya suspected it housed some sort of data backup, supported by the fact that several “repairmen” had come around without ever actually fixing the jukebox. 

Although accessing the pub had been easy, it was another thing to go about gathering evidence of wrongdoing. The security cameras were, of course, a problem. She didn’t want to arouse suspicion by trying to force her way into the locked back room. Her opportunities to gather information were few and far between, and she had been frustrated by how slowly she made progress, limited to tracking the movements of low-level Lannister henchmen who came in and out of the pub. 

Now, almost two years later, and she’s finally, _finally_ been making progress. Bran had helped her crack her software issue, and she had managed to mirror the data backup kept in the jukebox. She had never told Bran explicitly what he was helping her do, but she knew he probably suspected. He said nothing, but gifted her with a cheap laptop.

“So yours doesn’t get any bugs on it,” he said, shrugging. 

Surprisingly, it had been Rickon who had helped her with the back door issue. He had gotten interested in slight-of-hand-magic (one of their mother’s many attempts to get Rickon to stop fidgeting so much), and he had taught Arya not only how to make objects disappear, but how to pick locks. The final piece of the puzzle had come from Sansa, who had frequently caused havoc when they were growing up by plugging her hair dryer into the wrong socket and overloading the house’s circuits. It was a frequent issue with older buildings, and all Arya had to do was plug a few fryers into the same outlet on “accident” and the power went out, including the security cameras that the henchmen had wired into the building. A few of Rickon’s tricks and Arya had slipped in and out of the back room unnoticed before the fry cook had managed to find the circuit breaker. 

It’s been slow work, but the pieces are coming together. All she really needs to get a hold of are financial records linked to the Baelish account and she can serve up Tywin Lannister to the Kingsguard on a silver platter.

For now, she leaves the case behind to focus on Jon, who has remerged from his room fully dressed, eyes fixed on the pizza she holds out to him.

“Thanks,” he says, taking the plate. “Wanna watch something?”

They settle down on his ratty old couch, choosing a mindless police thriller to watch. They have a routine for weekends like these: Arya brings pizza, they watch a bad movie, then they hit the gun range. Arya’s family had held annual hunting trips, and much to her mother’s dismay, Arya was an excellent shot. She had never much liked killing animals but she had always gone with her father and brothers to practice at the gun range. Nowadays the only hunting she did was firing a paintball gun; she found it very cathartic to trounce the preteen boys who frequented the King’s Landing paintball park. Still, she did own a real gun: a Beretta 92 FS gifted to her by Jon on her 18th birthday. Sometimes when the paintball catharsis wasn’t enough for her rage, she’d take her Beretta (loving nicknamed Needle after an inside joke with Jon) to the range and fire off a few rounds.

With the sound of shots ringing out, muffled by their giant protective headphones, Arya and Jon let their guns do the talking. It was a cliché, sure, but it made them feel that at least for a moment they were in control.

They spent the rest of the weekend in their usual silence, only breaking it to ask the necessities - _You hungry? Want another beer? Wanna go on a walk?_ They don’t talk about their lives and their feelings because there isn’t much to say. Arya spends half her time at school or studying, and her other half moonlighting as a bartender in a Lannister front, and she doesn’t really feel like talking about either of those things with Jon. Jon isn’t much better, as far as Arya can tell — the rare times he takes off of work are for Arya’s visits, but otherwise he seems to pull shift after shift at the station. Once, Jon tries to ask Arya about her personal life but she shrugs him off. She doesn’t have time for someone new in her life, and besides, she’d only be dragging them into her world of trouble. She doesn’t ask Jon about his personal life — there isn’t a single trace of Ygritte left in his apartment, and she’s not sure if it’s a good or bad sign.

She knows they’re both lonely, but at least for a few days, they’re lonely together.

 

—

 

The best skill Arya has developed being a bartender is how to read people. The old man drinking alone at the bar is nervous about something, slowly tearing apart the coaster between his fingers. The couple in the booth by the window are in the middle of a fight; she wouldn’t be surprised it it was a breakup. And the extremely good-looking man at the end of the bar is glaring at his beer, with a menacing posture that clearly says ‘don’t fuck with me.’

Which is too bad, really, because Arya really would like to fuck him.

She shakes her head angrily. Where had _that_ come from? She was at work and supposed to be focused, not drooling over some guy, no matter how broad his shoulders were or how blue his eyes. She hefts the kegs around the bar with a little more force than usual. As much as she would like to get laid — it had unfortunately been ages — Harrrenhal Pub was particularly unsuited for finding guys for a number of reasons.

She refills the glowering man’s beer, and as she goes to add it to his tab she notices it’s his fifth in as many hours. Curiosity piqued, she steals another glance at him. His morose nature seems edged with a bit of panic, and as Arya’s eyes dart to the cardboard box he’s hidden on a chair next to him, things fall into place.

“You just get fired?” she asks.

The comical look of surprise on his face makes him look much younger, maybe just a few years older than her. Then his face falls.

“Yeah, I got fired.”

Arya has never been great with emotional conversations, and she hates getting roped into them at the bar. People seek out a bartender like a priest in confession; she’s heard tales of woe ranging from adultery, heartache, and death, to the minor tragedies of losing a favorite T-shirt or being pooped on by a bird. She’s surprised this stranger doesn’t take the opening to talk to her, which really only makes her like him more, so she grabs a basket of fries from the kitchen for him. 

“I don’t need pity fries,” he grumbles.

Arya bristles in embarrassment. This is what she gets for trying to hit on literally the hottest guy she’s ever seen. _French fries, Arya?_ she scolds herself. _What the hell is wrong with you?_

“Fine, but you’re keeping them out here so I can eat them. I’m fucking starving.” She isn’t, but the fries smell good and she wants this guy to realize she doesn’t care about him at all. She goes over to help a group of new customers, and she definitely doesn’t sneak a glance over her shoulder at him. Not once.

That’s a lie, of course, because it’s in one of these covert glances that she spots Joffrey Fucking Lannister making his way over to the end of the bar, and she sees red.

“Get out of here, Lannister,” she barks out across the bar. 

His eyes widen in surprise and she curses herself. He was going to ruin _everything_ now that he knew she worked here. She should have just kept a low profile, pretended to be Ari Poole like she told everyone around here.

As Joffrey starts to taunt her, she sees only one solution: embarrass him so badly that he never, ever speaks of this day.

He gives her an opening, waving a bill in her face and demanding she bring him a pint. She leaps over the bar and spins him around, shoving him out towards the door.

“Gods, how are you this weak?” she says, trying to rub it in as much as possible. “I’m half a foot shorter than you.”

Joffrey struggles to throw her off, but her grip is as tight as a vise. Before she pushes him across the threshold, she whispers one last dig in his ear.

“Come back any time you want your ass kicked, Lannister. I could use a laugh.”

“ _You bitch_!”

“And you lot,” she says, whirling around on the open-mouthed cronies who follow Joffrey around. “Get the hell out.”

They hesitate, clearly itching for a fight, but Joffrey’s increasing volume outside compels them to slink out. He seems to be yelling _Don’t you know who I am?!_ at the bouncer, Hodor, clearly unaware that the man is deaf. Arya shouts to Hodor that Joffrey and his friends are banned, using her arms to signal the necessary motions. Hodor nods in understanding, and turns back to Joffrey, who is quite red in the face by now. Arya smirks, although she feels a little trepidation that Joffrey has found her out.

The man at the end of the bar is gazing steadily at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Arya schools herself to not blush.

“Arya _Stark_ ,” he says. “Do you have a sister?”

She feels like she’s been dunked in ice water. Of course he’s interested in Sansa. He’s literally the best looking guy she’s ever seen, and no one ever looks twice at Arya once they’ve seen Sansa. Arya tries to shake off the feeling of rejection — she doesn’t even know this guy’s _name_ — and besides, he can’t be any worse than Joffrey. If Arya can find Sansa a guy who’s not a total dick, it will be a major step up from all her exes.

But the man surprises her. He tells her he knows Sansa, but it’s not with the same dreamy look that all men get when they talk about her. He seems amused as he relays the story of Sansa slapping Joffrey, but his eyes linger on Arya as she moves about the bar. She feels the heat of his gaze and a spark of hope flickers within her.

And then it’s doused again when he sees straight through her.

“You’re here because you _want_ to be, not because you _have_ to,” he says, and she hates that he’s right. A retort is at the tip of her tongue, to tell him she’s here for a higher cause than just a paycheck, that she’s trying to use her privilege for good, but she has to swallow it down. Instead, she settles for trying to steal the fries back, but he holds firm.

“Thought you said you didn’t want ‘pity fries,’” Arya snarls.

“The bartender told me I had to keep them here because she was hungry,” the man says, raising an eyebrow.

She storms off, feeling annoyed. What’s strange is that she isn’t annoyed with him. She should be, but she’s mostly annoyed with herself. She should be keeping her distance from him — from everyone, really — but instead she had found herself compelled to bring him fries, to talk to him. He was being stubborn, but she was always stubborn, and, Gods help her, she actually _liked_ this guy.

She finds herself standing in front of him again without really knowing how she got there.

“Peace offering,” he explains as he holds out the fries.

“How generous of you to offer me the free fries that _I_ gave you,” she spits back.

“I’m Gendry,” he says. “Thanks for being nice to me since I got fired.”

Arya’s expression softens a bit, and she reaches out to grab some fries. 

“Was it one of Tywin Lannister’s companies? Is that how you know that fucking prick Joffrey?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Gendry says. “QB Haptics.”

Arya pulls a face. She knows that name — she’s seen it in several spreadsheets and documents she’s pulled from the pub’s secret records. She quickly evaluates Gendry, but he doesn’t seem like the type of guy to willingly participate in a money laundering scheme. Besides, she had been certain based on her files that QB Haptics existed almost solely to give Joffrey a job and to look good on paper — the Lannister name trying to help disabled people by designing better protheses. Still, she had never quite understood the name, so she figures Gendry is the right person to ask.

“What the hell is ‘haptics’?”

She spends the rest of her shift listening to Gendry’s deep voice. He explains the basics of robotics to her, and she feels a funny fluttering in her stomach when she sees his eyes light up in excitement. His hands shape his words as he explains his work, building a world in front of her eyes. His passion surprises her. Her own passions have been fueled by rage and vengeance, but Gendry seems to run on pride and hope. It’s clear he’s proud of the work he’s done — Arya’s basic deduction had immediately pegged him as having grown up poor based on his reaction to free food — and that part of his success has been to spite those who hadn’t believed in him. But he also seems to truly believe that the world could be improved, that machines could be built to help people, and that he wanted to be the one to do it.

Arya Stark is not easily charmed, but Gendry Waters isn’t like anyone she’s ever met before.

When he tries to unsubtly ask if she’ll be working at the pub tomorrow, she doesn’t hesitate to tell him she’ll be there. She’s breaking her own rule to maintain an air of mystery in the pub, but Gendry’s laugh is like a beacon in her very dark world. Between slogging through school, the subterfuge at the pub, and sorting through mountains of paperwork to bring down the Lannisters, Arya hasn’t had many bright spots in her life in the past two years.

Would it really be so bad to have just one good thing?

 

—

 

When time is finally called, Arya slumps in her seat in relief. She’s finished with the bar exam, and she thinks she maybe even managed to pass. A small miracle with all the chaos in her life.

The past three months haven’t gone quite as planned. She had followed her strict study schedule, worked her shifts in the bar, and even maintained a regular gym routine. But there had been one very large distraction in the shape of Gendry Waters in her life, but she couldn’t really complain about it. Without him, she might have gone crazy from the stress.

Of course, she had gone crazy in another way, but it was an ache that almost felt good.

She had known from the first week that he had wanted her. As luck would have it, they frequented the same gym, and he had run into her as she completed a workout. She was beyond sweaty, and more than a little disheveled, but his jaw dropped a bit when he saw her, and Arya recognized the desire in his eyes. They darkened as she grinned at him.

_Good_ , she thought. _I could use another workout_.

She’s surprised when he doesn’t ask her out. He doesn’t even ask for her number, just wordlessly joins her lifting weights, and shows up to the pub as usual. She starts to think maybe she misread him, maybe he’s not interested in her. But the way he tracks her as she moves around the bar, the way his eyes glimmer when she smirks at him, the way his knuckles clench when a patron tries to get her number — Gendry wants her, but he’s not making a move. 

It’s probably for the best. As long as she’s going after the Lannisters, she’s a liability to everyone in her life. Arya isn’t naive — she knows if she gets caught, the Lannisters can find many ways to get rid of her. She has evidence that they’ve done so with other enemies on several occasions. The last thing she wants is to drag Gendry into all of this. Warm, dependable Gendry, who always tips her more than she deserves, even though he’s dead broke. Gendry, who will always pause his job searching to entertain her when she’s bored. Gendry, who makes her heart race every time he smiles at her, who treats her like she’s someone special even though she’s tried so hard to make herself no one here.

She’s resolved to send him away, somewhere safe and far away from her. She pushes him to apply to jobs outside of King’s Landing — jobs in Dorne, and Storm’s End, and the Vale. It’s the only way she can justify staying friends with him, knowing that soon he’ll leave and be safe. She’ll still have the warm memories of their friendship to fuel her as she brings down Tywin Lannister.

It changes when she goes up to Eastwatch for the weekend.

The past two visits have been different with Jon. They still eat pizza, watch bad movies, fire off some rounds together, but they’ve started talking more. On their long hikes with Ghost, he tells her about his new partner at work, Tormund. The man sounds like a lunatic to Arya — he’s a strict vegan whose hobbies include rock climbing, skydiving, mountain biking, and boxing. He has a penchant for telling extremely outlandish tales that may or may not be true, but his presence seems to cheer Jon, so Arya guesses he can’t be that bad. Jon also asks Arya more questions about her life, and although she still won’t tell him about her work on the Lannister case, she finds herself telling him about Gendry.

“So you like this guy?” Jon asks.

“We’re friends,” she replies evasively.

“Hm,” Jon smirks at her. “Just friends?”

Arya feels her heart twist painfully in her chest. 

“Yeah. Just friends.”

“Okay,” Jon says evenly, his eyes narrowed a bit in suspicion. He seems to sense Arya’s discomfort and drops the subject. Arya is so caught up in her own thoughts, she almost stumbles when Jon speaks next.

“So I went on a terrible date on Wednesday.”

“What?!” 

Arya is shocked. Of course, she had always thought — hoped even — that Jon would find someone after Ygritte. She wanted her cousin to be happy. But he had been so withdrawn the past two years, that she was surprised to see the mirth in his eyes, the smile tugging at his lips.

“Yeah, it was a blind date.”

“What happened?”

“She insisted on doing a tarot reading for me.”

“And you stayed? Man, way to ignore an easy red flag right there.”

“I know, I know,” Jon laughed. “But I’m rusty. Thought maybe it was a new thing people were doing.”

“She was really hot, wasn’t she?”

“Oh, definitely,” Jon grinned. “But then she did the reading and fully flipped out.”

“Why?”

“She started babbling about how it was clear I was chosen — marked by tragedy, but destined for greatness — and that she could be the one to guide me to it. I was only halfway through my coffee, I couldn’t just leave… stop laughing Arya, I told you it was terrible.”

Arya laughs so hard it turns into a girlish giggle that she normally hates, but it’s hard to stop. Jon looks happier than she’s seen in years.

Once she calms down, the question slips from her lips unintended.

“Aren’t you scared that the people you love will get hurt because of you?”

She regrets it immediately. Jon’s face pinches in pain, and he rubs absentmindedly at the scars beneath his shirt. She’s about to issue a rare apology when Jon speaks again.

“Everyone gets hurt, Arya. Sometimes it’s our fault, and sometimes it’s not. But I’ve spent a long time trying to push away people I love. They can still get hurt, so what’s the point?”

He turns his dark, solemn eyes on her. Arya can hear her heart pounding in her ears.

“Being loved is a gift. No matter what happens, I have to believe it’s better to tell someone you love them than never letting them know.”

Arya spends the long drive back from Eastwatch mulling over Jon’s words. Everyone always thinks Arya is impulsive, and she certainly earned that reputation as a child, but as she’s aged, she’s found that careful planning can be extremely effective at getting what she wants. And she wants Gendry, wants him to know how much he means to her, how much she wants him.

She just has to finish this stupid test first.

Arya curses herself for never getting Gendry’s number — it had seemed safer that way in case anything went sideways in her Lannister plan — but she hopes he’s at Harrenhal Pub to see her. She lingers for a moment in the doorway after she’s spotted him. He’s glancing hopefully into the kitchen, as if she’ll appear in time for her shift. Arya feels her heart lift and she strides over to his table.

She easily convinces him to come back to her place, and has to hide her smile at his hesitation to join her on the bed. Although she had initially planned on seducing him, she recalculates that sleep is probably the best option for her. She’d like to remember this moment, and her brain feels mushy from the hours of test taking. 

She wakes up before him and spends a long time looking at his face. She wonders why he’s become so important to her in such a short span of time. He’s always treated her as an equal in every way — even when they were at the gym he had assumed she could lift the same amount as he could, and she had been annoyed that she couldn’t — and he had always listened to her, even the most petty complaints. Perhaps he mattered so much to her because she mattered to him. Maybe she loved him because he loved her.

She wriggles out of bed, shaking her head in alarm. _Love?_ Where had that come from? Arya had never been in love — sure, she _liked_ Gendry, liked him a lot. But they had only known each other three months, that was hardly enough time to fall in love, wasn’t it?

She tries to shake off her unease in the shower, but the thoughts refuse to wash away. She had always tried her best to care for Gendry, to protect him, to show him he mattered to her. That was why she had spent weeks giving him free food and beer, helping him with his job search, listening to his worries. But friends did those sorts of things, too.

_But you don’t like him as just a friend_ , says the voice in her head. _You brought him here to fuck him_.

Arya turns off the shower and shakes her head. She vows to put the idea of love aside. She likes Gendry a lot, she wants to be with him, and she’ll do everything in her power to help and protect him. Maybe that’s love, and maybe it’s not, but the name of the feeling doesn’t matter so much. It’s what she feels, and she’s going to show him right now.

He’s lying on the bed, eyes wide and staring at her and she feels a thrill of excitement. Her plan is going to work perfectly.

In fact, the plan is even better than she anticipates. She had imagined the feel of Gendry’s lips on hers many times, the feel of his warm, broad hands on her body. But she had not anticipated just how good he’d look naked — a frisson of lust shoots through her at the sight of his thick, hard cock — or that he’d be quite so skilled with his tongue and hands. His face is buried between her legs, his fingers swirling over and into her, and she loses herself to the feeling. It’s more than just the physical pleasure; it’s knowing how much he wants her, that he’s sought her out day after day, that he might feel the way she feels that makes her tremble and shake. When she tells him no one has ever made her come so hard before, she’s being honest. But the whole truth is that she’s never felt this way about anyone else, and that she’s not sure how much longer she can avoid thinking of this as love.

Arya feels loose and warm as she slides down onto him. Everything else has melted away — her job, her career, her revenge — everything is gone but Gendry, solid and sturdy beneath her. His blue eyes are hazy with lust, his expression somewhat slack and she knows she must look the same. His hands never stop roaming — she has always admired his hands — and as he thrusts up into her, he hits just the right spot to make her moan. He repeats the motion over and over again, and she’s sure she’s saying something but she can’t imagine what she could say other than his name. When he comes, her name is a sigh on his lips, and she shivers. She’s spent the past few weeks trying to make sure Gendry has been protected from her, but here in his arms she feels safer than she has in a very long time.

She pulls away from him, suddenly ravenous.

“I believe you said something about breakfast?”

Gendry laughs and fists his hands in her hair, kissing her forehead. As they tug on their clothes, Arya slips into the bathroom, leaning against the door behind her with a shuddering exhale. She feels close to tears, but she’s not sure why. There’s a voice like Jon’s in her head.

_Being loved is a gift_.

Maybe Gendry loves her, and maybe he doesn’t. But she feels treasured, admired, _wanted_ in a way that she never has before. Jon was right. This feeling is a gift.

And there was no present like the present.

 

—

 

Arya endeavors to spend as much time as possible with Gendry over the next week. Gendry appears to have no objections to this plan. They spend their days ambling about the city and their nights tangled in bed together. When his eyes are closed, his face in peaceful slumber, Arya imagines what her life will be like when she’s finished her mission. She lets herself dream about things other than vengeance and fury.

When, two weeks later, Gendry bounds into the pub, triumphant that he got a new job in Storm’s End, Arya is elated. She had pushed hard for him to apply — he had spent several long minutes enumerating why he would never be considered, why it was too out of reach. Arya had thrown a dishrag at his head and he had relented. She had been hoping it would work out — Storm’s End would suit Gendry well, and he’d be far away from the clutches of Lannister Inc.

He pulls her into his arms and kisses her fervently. Arya feels dizzy with happiness.

“Come with me,” Gendry says breathlessly as they pull apart. “The Westeros Civil Liberties Union has an office there, and we can roam around town and find a terrible pub to go to like this one… I…” 

He trails off, eyes widening in fear. Arya feels an icy cool sensation slowly winding down her back. 

As much as she’s let herself dream about a future unburdened from her self-appointed duty to bring down Tywin Lannister, she’s always held firm that it was a _distant_ future. She could not rest until she was done. She was so close — so _close_ — and she couldn’t stop now. Not even for Gendry. 

She allows herself one last kiss, one last moment of happiness.

“Gendry, I’m so proud of you,” she says quietly. She means it, and it makes her heart twist to see his eyes alight with joy. “But I can’t go to Storm’s End. I’m sorry.”

She tries to turn away quickly, but she’s too late. She’s seen the look on his face — the pain, the embarrassment, the confused anger. She tries not to think about the fact that it might be the last time she ever sees him, and although she peers out of the window to watch him stride away from the pub, he doesn’t turn back.

She had planned on spending the evening sorting through more pilfered Lannister information, but she can’t bring herself to do it. She lies back on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Gendry’s face, hurt and sad. She knows it’s for the best — she’s dangerous, and she has a mission — but she can’t help sending one last text.

_Arya Stark: You okay?_

_Gendry Waters: Yeah_  
_Sorry_  
_About what I said_  
_That was too much_  
_It was stupid_  
_Nervemind_  
_Sorry_

There are tears rolling down her face. She doesn’t know what would hurt more: if he had really wanted her to go with him, or if he didn’t.

_Arya Stark: You should take that job, Gen_  
_I mean it, you’ll be great_

_Gendry Waters: Thanks_

She wipes her tears and gets to work. There is no rest for the wicked.

 

—

 

It takes another five months, but Arya finally cracks the Lannister case open. Or rather, she finds a solid link between Petyr Baelish and Tywin Lannister, and what she finds is too gruesome to keep quiet any more. Sex trafficking is much worse than she expected, and while she can sit on some mild money laundering for a while to build a case, she can’t let either Baelish or Lannister continue their affairs if innocent people are being bartered and sold.

She drives seven hours to Eastwatch to see Jon. When she shows up at his door with a pizza, he’s more than a little surprised to see her.

“Arya! What are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to come up for another two weeks. I…” he trails off, looking distracted.

“Jon? You okay?” calls a voice from the hall.

Arya blanches.

“Jon, I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d have anyone over…”

Jon is blushing bright red, but he motions her inside. She brings the pizza into the tiny kitchen where a very striking woman is preparing tea. Her hair is platinum blonde and elaborately braided, although the amount of flyaway hairs protruding and the fact that she’s wearing one of Jon’s old Winterfell High t-shirts is a bit of a giveaway as to what Arya may have interrupted. 

“This is Dany,” Jon says as Arya mutely shakes the woman’s hand.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Arya Stark,” Dany says. Her gaze is cool but her smile is warm — Arya can’t quite decide how to feel about her. But then she sees Jon’s face, open and adoring, and she decides that whoever can make her favorite cousin so happy must not be all that bad. 

“You have something important to tell Jon,” she says, and it isn’t a question. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Nice to meet you,” Arya calls as an afterthought. Dany smiles from the doorway, and the warmth reaches her eyes. 

Arya turns to look at Jon, raising an eyebrow.

“She’s great,” Jon gushes, unable to help himself. “We met at one of those support group things Sam kept trying to get me to go to. You know, for people who had lost someone? Anyway, we had a lot in common and… well, she’s an amazing woman.”

“I’m glad you found each other,” Arya says, slightly mortified that there are tears welling in her eyes. Jon seems equally alarmed.

“Hey, hey… sit down. What’s going on?”

Arya, not quite trusting her voice, opens her backpack and hands Jon the thick stack of papers she’s accumulated. Jon takes them from her, slowly reading through each, his eyebrows lifting higher and higher as he goes. The pizza is forgotten on the counter — neither of them are particularly hungry.

“Arya Stark, what the hell have you done?”

He’s angry. She knew he would be, and she knows he’ll be angry at her for a long time. She deserves it, but it still stings.

“I need your help,” she says, ignoring the set of his jaw. “I need to know who in King’s Landing to contact about this. I don’t want someone in the Lannister’s pockets. I need this to be completely anonymous.”

“How… how did you get all of this?”

“I’ve been working in Harrenhal Pub for the past two years.”

“Harrenhal… fuck, Arya. Fuck! Do you have _any_ idea how much danger you’re in?”

“Yes,” she says calmly. “That’s why I need your help. I’ve done what I needed to and I’d like to get out.”

Jon barely speaks to her for the rest of the evening. Dany stays over, and she and Arya make polite but distant conversation while Jon broods in the corner.

The next morning, Arya wakes up on the old couch with Jon looming over her.

“We’re going to King’s Landing,” he says. “Dany made breakfast and then we’re going.”

Arya manages to wolf down some eggs before they hit the road. They spend the first few hours in silence before Jon breaks down and explains his plan.

“I’ve got a contact in the Kingsguard. You’ve heard of Selmy Barristan, yeah?”

“I remember him,” she says. “He’s been around for a while. I see him in the papers sometimes.”

“Yeah. He’s a good captain. His squad always does good work, and he’s been after Lannister for a while, but they’ve had to keep it quiet in case there was someone working for Tywin skulking about.”

“How do you know he’s legit then?”

“Dany got in contact with him.”

“Dany?” Arya is surprised. She realizes that in their brief conversation the night before, Arya hadn’t thought to ask Dany about her job.

“She works for the Westeros Bureau of Investigation.”

“Isn’t stuff like that supposed to be a secret?”

“You going to tell anyone?”

“No.”

“So it’s fine. Anyway, she helped put us in touch, and we’re going to see him right now. He can help you out.”

The ride in silence for a while before Jon speaks again, quieter and less angrily than before.

“Why did you do it, Arya? You put yourself in so much danger…”

“You know why I did it, Jon.”

“Arya, you shouldn’t have… not for me…”

“What would you have done? If it were me in your shoes, would you have let it go?”

Jon says nothing, pursing his lips together. The air hangs heavy between them.

They’re almost back in King’s Landing when Arya pulls over to get gas. Jon buys a bag of sour skittles for them to share. Arya lets him eat all the green ones. It’s their way of apologizing to each other.

Jon lifts the silence as they pull back onto the highway.

“Hey, whatever happened with your friend, what’s-his-name? James… Henry… Gendry?”

Arya flinches, and immediately resigns herself to telling Jon everything. The flinch has given her away — even if he wasn’t an excellent detective, Jon is as close as a brother to her. He knows her well enough to tell something is wrong.

So she tells him everything — omitting the more prurient details, of course — right up through Gendry leaving for Storm’s End. She even mentions the occasional texts she sends him now and then. Arya knows she should just cut off contact, that it would be easier for both of them. But there have been some long and lonely nights since Gendry left, and sometimes she couldn’t help but scratch the itch. She took little pride in the fact that he usually responded within minutes. It made her ache to think that he might be as lonely as she was.

When she’s finished, Jon reaches out to grasp her shoulder, like he would when she was little. She’s driving, so she can’t quite look him in the eyes, but she feels him watching her.

“You’ve been so brave, Arya. What you’ve done will stop a lot of bad people, and help protect many more.”

She wants to weep from the tenderness in his voice.

“You’re a fighter. You always have been. You’ve fought for what’s right. Now you can fight for yourself.”

She lets herself look away from the road for a moment, into the dark eyes of her cousin.

“Go win him back.”

 

—

 

She drums her fingers on the bench, counting backwards from ten to stay calm. She’s never been a patient person, but this is worth the wait. 

Gendry is worth the wait.

It had taken her another three months to extricate herself from the mess in King’s Landing. Her information had been the death blow to Lannister Inc., but caution had to be exercised before the final arrest. It had made Arya furious — innocent people continued to be hurt while the Kingsguard continued to mount their case, cautiously observing Tywin and his cronies — but several long conversations with Jon and Dany had helped her, if not _agree_ with the protocol, then at least understand it. It had given her time to find a new job with the Westeros Civil Liberties Union where she had spent two weeks before jumping at at chance to transfer to Storm’s End.

Jon had called her brave, but Arya did not feel very brave, at least not in this instance. She had barely spoken to Gendry. The closest she had gotten to admitting she missed him was sending him a picture of a place they had gone to at the beach during their week of… whatever they had. She hadn’t even told him she had moved to Storm’s End. She spent a week living out of a cheap motel, searching for a place to live in Storm’s End, before she mustered up enough courage to go to him.

And now she is here, on a bench in front of his work, second guessing herself. When Gendry finally emerges and spots her, he looks furious. 

“Arya, what are you doing here?”

“Want to get a drink?” They may have only spent a few months together, but she knows how to disarm his anger through distraction.

“What? I…yeah. Yeah, okay, a drink.”

He leads her to a pub and she goes to grab them some beers. She can tell he’s still fuming, as if the glower on his face wasn’t a dead giveaway, but she remains calm. If he were truly unwilling to forgive her, he wouldn’t have come with her. She still has a chance.

When she slides him her phone to read the article on Tywin Lannister’s arrest, she watches his face. His hair is a bit longer, but he otherwise looks the same, piercing blue eyes darting over the phone screen in front of him. Her heart is pounding with anxiety and anticipation, but she forces herself to stay still, to answer his questions, to let him set the pace.

“You’ve helped a lot of people with this, Arya. You should be proud. _I’m_ proud of you.”

She feels her heart skip. She dives in, telling him she has a job in Storm’s End. Gendry can only blink at her. She eyes him over her beer, waiting for his response.

“I missed you,” he blurts out.

Arya’s shoulders relax. She lets out a long breath and gives him a shy smile.

“I missed you, too,” she admits. “When you asked me to come with you…”

“That was crazy,” he says hastily. “I should never… I’m sorry for saying that. It was too much pressure.”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it though,” she says. “I had things to do in King’s Landing, things I had to see through, but I wanted… I wanted to go with you.”

“Arya…”

“I get it if I missed my chance… you don’t ever have to see me again if you don’t want to, but I had to at least try.”

“Are you crazy?” he says.

Her heart plummets. It was too much. How could she just assume she could waltz back into his life after everything? 

But then he surprises her.

“Arya, you’re all I could think about these past few months. Of course… of course I want to be with you. How could I not?”

She leans over the table to kiss him and her mind goes blissfully blank. All she can do is feel Gendry’s warm breath, his rough hands cupping her face. She pulls away and grins at him, feeling her smile pull wider as she takes in his dazed expression.

“Do you live near here?” she asks, and Gendry practically bolts out the door, her hand held tight in his.

Maybe it’s too fast to fall back into things, but Arya can’t help herself, and the way Gendry keeps whispering her name only emboldens her further. They barely make it to his room before she’s tugging off his shirt and he’s pulling hers off, desperate to press as close as possible. She’s trapped between Gendry and the wall, and she can feel the hard length of him pressed up against her through his jeans. She rolls her hips and Gendry lets out something between a groan and a growl.

Their frenzied pace slows, and Gendry kisses her slow and deep. He pulls back to look into her eyes with such tenderness that she feels a bit weak in the knees. She had always thought it was a rather stupid expression — what did her knees have anything to do with her heart? — but she’s now very glad to be leaning against a sturdy wall. Gendry slides his hands up to her breasts and rolls her nipples gently between his fingers. Arya squirms under his ministrations, and Gendry presses his hips more firmly into her. The pressure of his warm cock against her makes her blood pound, and she surges forward, flipping him so he’s pressed against the wall. His grin is wide and hungry as she makes quick work of his belt, shoving down his pants and boxers. Before he can step out of them, her mouth is on him and he lets out a loud moan.

She loves doing this, filling her mouth with his hard cock, the taste of salt on her tongue. Her hand strokes his length as she bobs her head, watching the long line of Gendry’s throat as he throws his head back against the wall. She feels powerful, desired, beautiful even, as he moans her name. He rolls his head forward to watch her, his expression a mix of lust and affection.

Arya thanks every god she can think of that she found her way back to this man.

She continues to work his cock, Gendry’s moans echoing in the room, until he suddenly but lightly pushes on her shoulders. He looks happy but a bit sheepish.

“I won’t last long if you keep doing that,” he explains.

“That’s okay,” she replies. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His gaze softens and he caresses her face with a large hand. He presses a gentle kiss to her cheek.

“Can I do down on you?” he asks. She feels herself shiver in anticipation and Gendry laughs. She scowls and punches his shoulder.

“If you keep laughing at me, I won’t let you,” she says. But it’s an empty threat — she’s already stepping out of her shorts and lying back on his bed.

Gendry eyes her naked form hungrily. He lowers himself over her, but doesn’t touch her.

“Please,” he whispers.

Arya feels the same surge of power at this simple word. She nods her head and sighs as his lips kiss her, his tongue darting out to touch her. It’s the same beautiful pleasure she had felt their first time — not only the physical arousal, but the euphoric emotion building within her. There’s a distant part of her that remembers that Gendry has roommates, and that maybe she shouldn’t scream so loudly, but she finds it difficult to care about that. She wants to shout to the world how Gendry makes her feel, and she wants Gendry to know just how happy she is to be here with him. 

As she comes down from her high, Gendry rustles in his bedside drawer for a condom. For a brief moment, a bolt of fear strikes through her. She hadn’t thought to ask if there had been others in the past eight months. Just because she had pined silently for him didn’t mean he had been obliged to do the same.

“I haven’t… been with anyone since you,” she admits, and he freezes as he tears open the foil.

“Oh,” he says, looking surprised. “Me neither. I guess… we weren’t still together all this time but I… it wouldn’t have felt right.” 

He looks uncomfortable and uncertain. Arya knows that look well; he isn’t sure if she’s wanted him the way he’s wanted her. 

“I only want to be with you,” she says, sounding much braver than she feels.

“Me too,” Gendry says eagerly.

“Good.” And she kisses him hard, stroking him as he hums happily into her mouth. 

Panting, Gendry pulls away to put on the condom. Arya flips herself over and holds her bottom high in the air, wiggling it as he laughs.

“You want it from behind?” he says, rising up on his knees behind her.

“Yes, please,” she says happily, easing herself back onto his cock.

She knows that maybe it’s not the most romantic position for a grand reunion — perhaps she should have let him settle between her legs, staring down into her eyes as they professed their feelings — but that wasn’t really their style. Besides, there would be time for romance later. Right now, she just wants to feel him fuck her.

Gendry grabs her hips and slowly slides in and out of her, softly groaning her name. She teases him, setting the pace herself as she pushes back into him, eyeing him over her shoulder. He’s trying to grin at her, but his eyes keep rolling back in his head every so often, and after a few more strokes, he grabs her more firmly and thrusts himself into her. He fucks her faster and faster, and Arya is crying out, grabbing at the bedsheets for purchase as he pounds into her. He makes her come, shaking with pleasure, and she can tell he’s close, too, but he slows for a minute, gentle hands stroking up and down her back. He folds himself over her, whispering in her ear as he threads his hands through her hair. She feels her arousal mounting again — really, it’s astounding how much she craves him — and then he’s thrusting into her again, hard and fast how she likes it and soon he has her screaming again. This time he joins her, and they collapse into the mattress beneath her. Arya enjoys the warm weight of him for a moment before she starts to feel crushed and he rolls away.

Arya can hear the sound of Gendry’s roommates teasing him as he goes to get her a glass of water. She had tried to get it herself, but Gendry had told her to save her strength for round two. She threw a pillow at his head, which he had thrown right back.

Gendry returns and settles in next to her. She feels warm and content, and starts to wonder about the dreams she had had before, the ones of her future without the burden of revenge.

“You’re happy here, right? In Storm’s End?” she asks, turning to face him.

“Yeah… yeah, it’s good. Better now that you’re here.”

Gendry leans over to kiss her. She smiles against his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
